Night Watch: NAJAF – A nightmare scenario is in the making for the London-Washington occupation of Iraq. France24/AFP report on Saturday the head of the 60,000 plus Mahdi Army, Muqtada al-Sadr, issued this statement through his office in Najaf, the Shia religious center in Iraq, “I am giving my last warning and my word to the Iraqi government; otherwise it will be a government of destruction. If it does not stop the militias that have infiltrated the government, then we will declare a war until liberation. The occupation has made us the target of its planes, tanks, air strikes and snipers. Without our support this government would not have been formed. But with its alliance with the occupiers it is not independent and sovereign as we would like it to be.” Almost immediately afterward loudspeakers in mosques around Sadr City blared out this message late night Saturday, “Fight the occupiers-get them out of your homes. They (US) are calling for division. We demand that the siege of Sadr City be lifted.” A Sadr spokesman, Salah al-Obeidi stated, “The ball is now in the government’s court. We won’t accept any further procrastination, false promises and political hypocrisy. If the government continues on this course, Sadr alone will decide the next steps.” [FRANCE24]

Green Zone (US Embassy) – It is Tehran who is ordering Muqtada al-Sadr and the Mahdi Army’s next steps as it is Iran, through its excellent relations with Iraq Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, is setting up the Iraq government and the foreign forces which support it for defeat-destruction. It is a failure which will be blamed on Washington since the Iraq government is largely its creation though for a while al-Sadr was instructed by Tehran to support it until Iran was ready to have it defeated. With this new alarming development, which began March 25 when fighting resumed between the Iraq Army and Shia militias, Swissinfo/Reuters report U. S. Secretary of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice arrived unannounced in Baghdad for a meeting Sunday with Iraq President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Rice’s meeting with Talabani was televised but she took no questions and during her meeting in the International Green Zone with Prime Minster al-Maliki the zone was again hit by rocket attacks. As rehearsed she reinforced Washington’s position on how courageous the Iraq Army is performing which confirms my suspicions London-Washington will remain true to form, they lied their way into Iraq and are now in the process of lying their way out. There is hardly anything more motivating than illusion, a false reality one embraces as a cover for panic. That is why Dr. Rice is presenting Washington’s latest and last myth of a new “Iraqi center”, a “political coalescing of Kurds-Sunnis-Shias” that are coming together to stablize the country but the reality is she left the meeting with al-Maliki five minutes after the all clear signal was given. I will not be surprised if Washington flees the country blaming the Iraq government. [SWISSINFO]

Baghdad (Iran Embassy) – The Gulf-Times/AFP report Tehran’s Ambassador to Baghdad, Hasan Kazemi Qomi has begun to issue statements from Iran’s Embassy, which of course is not under fire, statements which give more indications how the situation will be resolved. First of course the problem of the last days of the ineffective Iraq administration, criminal gangs and foreign forces, “No government should allow outlaws. We are encouraging the government to fight the outlaws. But we are against the way the Americans are implementing the policy by bombing and closing down Sadr City. In this way people are suffering. The wrong policy of Americans by bombing innocent people will yield bad results.” Iran wants U. S.-British forces drawn deeper into the conflict and I suspect Dr. Rice told the heads of Iraq’s administration there are limits to the support the U. S. and British can give. That is why it is no coincidence her visit was right after British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was in Washington. Ambassador Qomi then said, “We are in favor of a strong army in Iraq. All weapons must be in the hands of the government. There are 28 militias that exist in Iraq. We want to see them all disbanded.” [GULFTIMES]

I am not surprised His Excellency knows the exact number of militias since Tehran has armed them for the purpose of creating the chaos Iran is having directed at the occupation and the remaining Iraq Army units still serving with London-Washington. Most, if not all the militias will be disbanded when Iran gives the word.

Tehran – Iran has of course constantly denied having anything to do with the arming of units opposed to London-Washington and is now accusing the U. S. officials, like Dr. Rice, of suffering from Iranophobia whenever Iran is blamed for the attacks in Iraq. Recently she referred to Iran’s “nefarious influences.” Haaretz reports the spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, Mohammad Ali Hosseini replied, “Regarding Rice’s statements, these statements are not something new. American officials follow the policy of Iranophobia. We see the developments in Iraq today are the outcome of the U. S. administration’s illogical policies. The American officials want to externalize the problems they are facing inside Iraq.” With the enormous corruption controlling London-Washington’s decision making they had no chance to succeed. It revolves around the decision to halt the coalition forces outside Baghdad in 1991 and let Saddam Hussein remain until military bases were completed for Iran by the engineering firm headquarted in San Francisco through its London branch office. The office was shown on CNN the day after the Gulf War ended which is why Saddam was not finally removed until twelve years later. [HAARETZ]

It is illogical to sell the foreign policy to the enemy. An enemy London-Washington and the West are only now taking seriously.

Willard Payne is an international affairs analyst who specializes in International Relations. A graduate of Western Illinois University with a concentration in East-West Trade and East-West Industrial Cooperation, he has been providing incisive analysis to NewsBlaze. He is the author of Imagery: The Day Before.